What other jobs have you done?
I studied engineering, but through a series of misadventures, stumbled into the Internet industry in 1995, and into freelance journalism after that. After spending years sitting at desk staring out an office window at Dublin, I decided that I needed a change. Now I sit at a tilting desk, staring out a porthole at a heaving ocean. Regrets? None!

Essential survival items for spending time on the Rainbow Warrior?
Seasickness pills, I'm ashamed to say. Next, MP3 player stacked with music and crazy things like Goon shows from the 1950s. Finally, a few good books are crucial. It's really important to able to clamber into one's bunk now and then, put on headphones, open a book, and just switch off. Strangely, this is possible, even in stormy seas.

If you were a fish, which one would you be?
I'm fascinated by eels, and the history ofhumans finding out where they come from. They spawn in the murky Sargasso Sea, swim all the way across the Atlantic, live in European rivers for years, then wander back to the Sargasso to breed and die. And they can cross land!

Anything else you'd like to say?
Absolutely. This is my third seamounts campaign in the last twelve months - so I've already spent around three months tracking bottom trawlers. In that time, I've lost count of how many netfulls of fish I've seen, but I'll never forget the tonnes of 'waste' - bycatch or bykill I've witnessed being thrown overboard, or the amount of ancient coral being trampled on the decks of trawlers.

- Dave